American University still located on proposed national park

The diminished 18,000 square metres of land outside development zones that is now being proposed for the private university campus at Marsaskala’s Zonqor Point, is still taking up some of the area designated as a national nature park, approved in the 2006 local plan for the south of Malta.

A local plan policy already protects this zone from development. This means that to approve the project the government will still have to amend the South Malta Local Plan to reduce the proposed national park by the 18,000 square metres being used for the campus.

The map published in the presentation on the campus issued by the government on Thursday shows the boundaries of the national park in 2006, but omits the site now identified for the American University of Malta.

The government has also appointed a project steering committee to formulate a management plan for the park. According to the original plans for the 90,000 square metres of university campus at Zonqor, a much larger part of the proposed park was set to be lost to development.

The local plan approved in 2006 designates the area known as L-Ghassa tal-Munxar and the coastal stretch between Zonqor point and Blata l-Bajda (Xghajra), as “national parks primarily for informal recreation (e.g. walking, cycling) and the appreciation of the ecological, geological, archaeological as well as cultural-historical features of these areas.

“Within these parks priority will be given to the conservation, protection and improvement of the natural and cultural-historical heritage. Positive provision will also be made for recreational uses consistent with this objective,” the local plan says.

Only limited commercial development related to the needs of visitors can be approved in the approved national park and this has to be identified by the Management Plan to be drawn up for each of the areas.

Despite designating the area as a national park as far back as 2006, the PN government did not proceed to approve management plans for the different areas of the park. In 2009 part of the site was even proposed for re-located caravans but this idea was scrapped after NGOs objected.